Tennessee Football: Where Is Joshua Dobbs’s Final Place Among Vols Quarterbacks?

Factor #3: Intangibles

This is where we take the accomplishments of the first two factors and qualify them while also adding a few things.

For instance, Peyton Manning owns every record in Tennessee football history and won an SEC title. His greatness is even more solidified, though, because he had a Hall-of-Fame NFL career, stayed until his senior season in college when he didn’t have to, and is a favorite son in Knoxville.

Condredge Holloway is the first black quarterback to ever play in the SEC and dealt with a lot at that time. Meanwhile, he was playing for a terrible coach and had a limited supporting cast.

Taking those things into account, it’s clear why those two guys are the two greatest quarterbacks in school history.

Tee Martin won a national championship and stayed and waited his chance. That also makes him beloved. However, he gets knocked down a few notches simply due to the fact that he had a loaded supporting cast when he won that title.

So we take into account intangibles and supporting casts.

When it comes to Joshua Dobbs, he did have a loaded supporting casts. He spent most of his career in Knoxville with multiple 6’3″ four-star and five-star receivers, and he had elite running backs.

However, he was held back by Mike DeBord many times, and all of these guys were young like him. So he had very few veterans to help bring him along as a quarterback.

Meanwhile, Dobbs had to make up for numerous injuries his senior year that were very unfortunate. As a result, his supporting cast is a mixed bag.

It’s not as elite as what Tyler Bray had in 2012, what Tee Martin had in the late 1990s, or even what Andy Kelly and Heath Shuler had. But it definitely surpasses what Condredge Holloway had and what Casey Clausen had.

So we put him in the category with Erik Ainge in this regard.

At the same time, though, Dobbs is a beloved quarterback who showed leadership intangibles that nobody can overlook.

The guy was an aerospace engineering major and consistently rallied his troops throughout the year. He gets a ton of respect for that and is even more beloved as a Vol in the process.

At the same time, on the field, he became famous for leading epic comebacks against the South Carolina Gamecocks, Georgia Bulldogs twice with a Hail Mary in one game, and the Florida Gators this year.

He helped oversee the restoration of Tennessee football to relevance, even if his team success did not meet that of others.

So his respect level is through the roof.

The only people who have it beyond Dobbs are Manning, Holloway, and Martin.

Taking all this into account, Dobbs is in the No. 4 to No. 8 range as a quarterback in school history when it comes to intangibles.